IMG_4842_kl.JPGIntroduction

First of all, we met in Spain, because the fourth country involved had not received the funding. There, we decided that our topic was too abstract and agreed to work on 'diversity in Nature'. Thus, the first common task in the 'Rich Interactive Scientific Learning for Everyone' was an analysis of the tapwater in the three countries (Austria, Norway and Spain) in order to know the similarities and the differences of the water.

We decided on a short task which every country could easily do in a few lessons and with the existing scientific equipment of each school. After the experiments the students should do a report about what they had done and also a short online test on itslearning.


WHY DID WE CHOOSE ‘THE ANALYSIS OF THE TAP WATER'?

Water is found all over the world and the Universe, in the atmosphere of some stars, in the planets of the solar system, in the comets,……
However, what distinguishes the Earth from other planets is the abundance of water in liquid state. Thanks to this and to the proprieties of this substance, our planet is the only one in our solar system with LIFE.

Water is a chemical compound without which the living beings wouldn’t be able to carry out their vital functions. Due to the importance of this substance for our planet, we intend to know some of the chemical and physical characteristics of the water we drink every day in different places. We would like to compare some of the parameters of the analysis of water, find similarities and differences. Therefore, we agreed that the common task in our project would be: “The analysis of the tap water”.
The educational objectives that we wanted to achieve with this task are:
  • Get to know the chemical composition of the water we drink.
  • Know that the tap water is a mixture of substances.
  • Find differences and similarities in the following parameters: Temperature, pH, chlorides, hardness and transparency.
  • Use strategies, procedures, materials and instruments for the analysis of the chosen parameters in the school laboratory.
  • Know the official analysis of the water we drink in every place, carried out by the correspondent authorities.
  • Compare the 3 different analysis. Establish the differences and the similarities.

We decided on the analysis of the following parameters of water: temperature, pH, hardness, transparency, chloride-ions.

  1. Austria's work tap_water.jpg

  2. Norway's work

  3. Spains' work


Conclusions:

We have noticed that the Ph is similar in the 3 countries althogh the temperature varied of course being colder in Norway.The water was less transparent in Austria whereas relating to Chloride, in Norway they have very little being thus more natural than in the other 2 countries. And finally, we could not find out the differences in hardness, because we were not using the same measure equipment and parameters, but apparently the water is almost equally hard (very hard) in Austria and Spain.